But to be forced to pump two hundred tons up, in order to float the smallest load a barge carries [4a] down your canal, would be so contrary to all principles of economical conveyance, as well as costly, that it becomes unavoidable to seek for some other means of transmission.
That which first struck you as applicable to your object, was a rail-way; since, by means of it, passengers may be conveyed as well as goods; so that, should any circumstance connected with the London and Birmingham Railway ever render it desirable, you might, then, convey passengers along your line. But though this could certainly be done, yet would the attainment of that certainty be attended with an expense, which might prove greater than the value of the purchase.
The avoidance of ascents which are at all abrupt, is now stated to be of such consequence as relates to the diminution of the daily expenses of railways, and so important with respect to what locomotive engines can do upon them, that it is current as the dictum of the principal engineer of the London and Birmingham Railway, that it is better to lay down six miles of railway to avoid (by going round it) a rise of 174 feet in one mile (an ascent of about an inch in a yard, that is) than to carry one mile of railway over said rise. And the junior engineer to that railway stated before the Lords’ Committee, that for a locomotive engine to get over a rise of fifty feet in height, was “nearly equal to going four miles round.”
The fuel consumed being the principal item of expense in locomotive engines, and the price of fuel with you being nearly ten times greater than on the Liverpool and Manchester line, [4b] the attainment of the desideratum of as regular an ascent as can be procured, becomes, according to this doctrine, more important as relates to your line, than it would be where fuel was cheaper, in proportion to the dearness of that fuel. A regular plane of ascent may, therefore, be considered indispensable to the proper operation of any railway you might lay down
Were you to do the utmost that could be done towards obtaining this regular plane of ascent, between your proposed points of departure and arrival, by cutting and embanking so as to make your line one continuous inclined plane, it would still be so remote from a level, as to rise at the rate of one foot of perpendicular height for 154 feet of horizontal distance; which would make the power required to draw any load along your line nearly twice as great as that which would be requisite to draw the same load on a level; while it would also present a sharper rise than some railways where stationary engines are the only moving power employed, owing to locomotives being considered unfit for railways so inclined.
Supposing your line, which must have the same number of rails that the Birmingham Railroad is to have (two lines of way that is) to be no wider than that railway is to be in the narrowest part, the amount of embanking necessary to render your plane of ascent regular to this degree would not be so little as one million of cubic yards.
In the evidence before the Lords’ Committee on the London and Birmingham Railway it is stated, that on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway there are about three millions of cubic yards of cuttings and embankments. It being known that the money paid by that Company for this purpose has exceeded two hundred thousand pounds, it may be presumed that the expense of one third of that amount of cutting and embanking on your line would not be less than about 70,000l.; while, as the nature of the ground your line must pass through, would render the proportion of embankments much greater than that of excavations, this amount of 70,000l. would be added to, by your being actually compelled to purchase the earth itself which would be required for those embankments, as well as to pay for the labour of digging and conveying it to where you wanted it.
Long lines of work being done for much less expense per mile than short ones; the London and Birmingham Railway being a very long line (112½ miles); the engineers of that railway having the very highest reputation as railway engineers; and the estimates laid before Parliament by those gentlemen for that railway, being the best authority it is possible to refer to as relates to the probable cost of a railway—I shall, for these reasons, and in order to prevent your supposing that my own opinion affects my statement, advert to the anticipated expense of that railway per mile as a measure of the cost of yours.
Deducting the estimated expense of cutting and embanking, from the general estimate of the London and Birmingham Railway, the average estimated expense of the other work of the two lines of way now proposed for that road (instead of the four lines of which it was to consist) is 20,631l. per mile. [5]
And as it is not evident why your short line should be done for less comparative expense than this long one (while it is to be presumed that it would cost much more), it may be assumed that the actual expense of attempting to make a railway, on which the tractive force required for any load would be nearly twice as great as on a level, along the line you propose, would not be so little as 100,000l.